New York ? Inside the press entrance at the Stadium on Sunday morning, a Yankee security guard got so worked up about something that he slugged a Post photographer in the face. Phone calls were made. Two police cars arrived. Arguments ensued. Everybody was miserable, on a delightful autumn day.

It was just another grumpy symptom of a starving, edgy city. The Yankees lose, then lose, then lose. And they aren’t the only ones, in case anybody noticed.

Teams are losing like crazy around here, squandering opportunities, taxing our patience. All of a sudden, New York pro clubs can’t buy themselves out of a paper bag.

Now that the Yankees have been beaten for the second straight time! it has been two years since the city’s last pro title. Twenty-four unendurable months. An eternity. An infinite collection of New York minutes.

While we witness this parade of failure, franchises from inferior cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Phoenix and Denver capture and celebrate titles. Even Boston, land of insufferable masochists, claimed a championship ring in Foxboro last January.

They rub their trophies in our face. We endure the insults. Martyred New York sports fans wait patiently, twiddling our thumbs, while the world decides when it will condescend to grant us our next title.

We are told not to complain, that we have had too many winners over the years, that things could always be worse. We could be Philadelphia, or Milwaukee, or Minneapolis. But now the Yankees have lost again, and we can only take so much.

It was way back at the 2000 Subway Series when anybody around here owned the last cheer. Even then, victory came at the expense of another New York team, splitting the city.

Two years is about 23 months too long.

This is now the longest title drought since that unbearable, 41-month slump from January 1991 (Giants win the Super Bowl) to June 1994 (Rangers win the Stanley Cup). You may remember that New York was not a happy place between those dates, and it wasn’t all because of the squeegee guys.

We have the confetti. We have the floats. We have the TV ratings. We are ready. But the last time a New York team won a title, Clinton was still President, Gov. George Pataki had two years left in his term and Wall Street could afford to throw a real party.

Now, who knows when the next title comes?

The Knicks? They can’t go on a boat ride without breaking a bone. The Rangers? They just want to reach May, finally. The suburban teams are more promising, but the Lakers and Red Wings are always around to smash any playoff drive.

The Jets and Giants are hopeless. The Mets don’t even have a manager.

So we await another cycle for the Yankees, who are giving us no guarantees.

“There it goes again,” Sterling Hitchcock was saying Sunday at his locker. “Money doesn’t buy a ring, no matter how much people want to whine about it.”

Hitchcock doesn’t understand. We here in New York want very much for our money to buy some rings. We will gladly throw money at problems, at aging rotations and bad defenses, particularly if those dollars belong to George Steinbrenner.

League commissioners and franchise owners conspire to stop us from buying titles.

They must try, anyway. Winning championships is the manifest destiny of the No. 1 market in the world. New York must outspend everyone, should put second-class burgs like Anaheim back in their place.

Anaheim in the ALCS? It is enough to make you slug a Post photographer.